Popular passages

Page 377 - No war, or battle's sound Was heard the world around : The idle spear and shield were high up hung ; The hooked chariot stood Unstain'd with hostile blood; The trumpet spake not to the armed throng; And kings sat still with awful eye, As if they surely knew their sovran Lord was by.

Page 377 - The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece! Where burning Sappho loved and sung, Where grew the arts of war and peace, Where Delos rose, and Phoebus sprung! Eternal summer gilds them yet, But all, except their sun, is set.

Page 503 - The ample proposition, that hope makes In all designs begun on earth below, Fails in the promis'd largeness : checks and disasters Grow in the veins of actions highest rear'd ; As knots, by the conflux of meeting sap, Infect the sound pine, and divert his grain Tortive and errant6 from his course of growth. Nor, princes, is it matter new to us, That we come short of our suppose so far, That, after seven years...

Page 323 - I hear of poets' fury tell, But, God wot, wot not what they mean by it; And this I swear by blackest brook of hell, I am no pick-purse of another's wit. How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease My thoughts I speak; and what I speak doth flow In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please ? Guess we the cause ? What, is it this : Fie, no. Or so ? Much less.

Page 93 - Blind, old, and lonely, when his country's pride The priest, the slave, and the liberticide Trampled and mocked with many a loathed rite Of lust and blood; he went, unterrified, Into the gulf of death; but his clear Sprite Yet reigns o'er earth; the third among the sons of light.

Page 100 - I arise from dreams of thee In the first sweet sleep of night, When the winds are breathing low, And the stars are shining bright: I arise from dreams of thee, And a spirit in my feet Hath led me — who knows how? To thy chamber window, Sweet! The wandering airs they faint On the dark, the silent stream — The Champak odours fail Like sweet thoughts in a dream; The nightingale's complaint, It dies upon her heart; — As I must on thine, Oh, beloved as thou art!

Page 100 - When the lamp is shattered The light in the dust lies dead — When the cloud is scattered The rainbow's glory is shed. When the lute is broken, Sweet tones are remembered not; When the lips have spoken, Loved accents are soon forgot.

Page 90 - MANY a green isle needs must be In the deep wide sea of misery, Or the mariner, worn and wan, Never thus could voyage on Day and night, and night and day, Drifting on his dreary way, With the solid darkness black Closing round his vessel's track ; Whilst above the sunless sky, Big with clouds, hangs heavily...